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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chas. who wrote (9353)	11/21/2009 6:52:31 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 15994

The USA needs to have operatives and agents throughout the World looking out for those individuals that would do harm to America and or its personnel and property. These individuals need to be well paid for their service. I agree.. But lordie, lordie, you can't believe how difficult it is to get approvals for large cash awards to intelligence sources. There is HUGE accountability involved and you'd better be able to justify it. But good HUMINT is a strong "force multiplier" and far cheaper than using expensive weapons systems to unleash indiscriminate violence. But our HUMINT capacity was destroyed by Carter and then again by Clinton. It's going to take years to get it back to some level of credible capability against terrorist networks. Until that time, we have to rely, in part, upon other nation's intelligence agencies for tips and support. Hawk

To: Chas. who wrote (9353)	11/23/2009 12:45:29 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15994

The USA needs to have operatives and agents throughout the World looking out for those individuals that would do harm to America and or its personnel and property. These individuals need to be well paid for their service. The USA does not have a lot of choice in this matter, there are millions that hate us and will do us harm at their first opportunity, our collective mindset needs to be cognizant of this fact and deal with it accordingly. Powerful societies have always had spies. One must have some advanced warning before being attacked. Clinton's executive orders severely hamstrung our foreign resources. President Bush restored a sense of balance. One of the very few things OBama has not screwed up is not reverting to the policies of Clinton. IMO when we get 4 years of Obama type administration we go backwards not forwards in these matters. It is much worse when the chief antagonist for the American Way is in the Whitehouse.